Conversations B2 – Week 8 Task

This image is a comment on the problem of child poverty in New Zealand, using humor to make a stab at the idea that no one has anything when they are born, therefore they are completely reliant on the people around them to care for them, thus their financial situation is beyond their control for most of their life. There is “…evidence that childhood disadvantage increases the chances of poor outcomes later in life. One of the most common aspects of childhood disadvantage is low family income and there is good evidence of the negative impact on future outcomes…” (Perry, Bryan 19). As mentioned in the lecture, child poverty has become a much more relevant problem in New Zealand, becoming differentiated to ‘standard’ poverty.

Perry, Bryan. “Working for Families: The impact on child poverty.” Social Policy Journal of New Zealand (2004): 19-54.

Conversations B2 – Week 7 Task

A key point from the week 7 lecture was about the increase in European trade power throughout the Pacific during the 1800s. “As far back as 1860, Samoa was a centre for trade and tourism, situated on a major shipping route between San Francisco and Australia, and en route for steam ships passing through the Panama Canal.” (Vercoe, 36). This certainly impacted much of the Pacific cultures, what with distribution of western food items affecting the physical health of the people who called these islands home.

An example of art used as a response to a socio-political situation confronting Pacific Islanders is Brett Graham’s sculpture installations, Bravo Bikini and Kainga Tahi Kainga Rua (2003). They represent the 50 year anniversary of the nuclear testing carried out by USA on the Bikini Atoll, and act as a “lament and reminder” of the effects of the nuclear testing in that area (Vercoe, 39). It’s stark white wood and walls are a reference to a “ground zero whiteout” (Vercoe, 39) of a devastating nuclear detonation.

The “Dawn Raids’ documentary is about the controversial raids on homes and workplaces of Pacific Islanders in the 70s, whom the government had ‘decided’ were overstayers here in New Zealand. Due to full time employment in the 60s, immigration services turned a blind eye to things such as visa restrictions for Pacific Island immigrants, but eventually the rate of immigrants arriving outgrew the need to employ them and the country faced an economic downturn. This lead to the need to blame someone for the troubles, and so politicians used Pacific immigrants as a scapegoat for overloading the workforce. This was quite aggressively resisted by many people, but Police were given authority to do random street checks despite being officially disclaimed. However, media coverage and activist resistance lead to the end of these raids, and all policies related to said incidents.

 

Vercoe, C.,(2004), The Many Faces of Paradise. In Paradise now? : contemporary art from the Pacific. (pp. 35-47). Auckland, N. Z. : David Bateman in association with Asia Society, 2004.

A3 Workbook // Gathering Ideas

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/10/feminism-not-humanism-youtube_n_6132414.html Humanism vs feminism

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/09/25/why-i-prefer-the-word-feminist-over-equalist/comment-page-2/ Why feminism is used and not equalism!!

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/#open (website of the Guerrilla girls, who fight for equality in art, including fighting against sexism.)

http://www.heforshe.org/en (feminist website focused on including males in the movement for equal rights)

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/18/bambi-graffiti-artist-female-banksy-street-art-feminism (Bambi, female graffiti artist and feminist, described as a female-Banksy, which in itself is somewhat sexist, likening her work to another man’s instead of acknowledging her as her own artist)

It is interesting to note that Urban Dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Feminism) has many definitions of Feminism. Urban dictionary is full of vulgar, rude, misguided and opinionated definitions of words both legitimate, and colloquial. It does contain accurate information, but it is more widely known as containing humorous, and potentially offensive definitions of words. However, it’s definitions of feminism, at least the first ones loaded as the ‘top definitions’, are accurate, well informed and generally not at all what I expected from Urban Dictionary. I found the top definition to be more informative and understandable than the one that Merriam Webster gave me. Of course, skip through the page or so few definitions and you stumble across the ‘man hater’ jokes and accusatory definitons, but those were to be expected from the start.

http://everydaysexism.com/about
A website where you can post your own stories about being discriminated against or sexist encounters, which can be anonymous or not. It’s purpose is to remind people that sexism is still a serious problem, and needs to be addressed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11609224/Sexist-beer-adverts-leave-me-frothing.-Leg-spreader-anyone.html
article about sexism in the beer industry

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/14/sexist-beer-ads-fosters
more examples of sexism in alcohol marketing, and why it needs to change

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3080856/Sexist-adverts-women-beer-says-Foster-s-boss-Chief-says-time-campaigns-insulting.html
article explaining that the sexist advertising beer companies have used are driving their female customers away. It explains that nowadays, there are twice the amount of women (in the UK) who drink lagers and beers, which means that the sexist advertising targeted at men is becoming totally void and increasingly damaging.

In New Zealand

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/299931/women’s-worth-and-sexism-in-sport I piece on women’s sport in New Zealand, and how they don’t get as much coverage, support or money in comparison to the men’s teams

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/288360/how-sexist-is-new-zealand-politics (News piece on NZ Politics and how nowadays it’s improving, but there’s still a way to go)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10822330
sexism in the NZ workplace, asking about future pregnancies in interviews.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/637729/i-Sport-the-last-bastion-of-sexism-i
more about sexism in sport, not just in New Zealand but also in Australia, and examples from elsewhere around the globe.

Advert Ideas and Stuff

I don’t particularly feel that this ‘man up’ poster works the best, but it is heading in the right kind of direction. Upon first glance, it would appear to be an ad for men, what with the hegemonically masculine man, arms crossed and intense beard and the rough looking title text. However the tagline clearly brings to light the idea that because of this you immediately thought this was an ad for men and about men. Not perfect, but it’s helped me realise the kind of direction I want to go in.

 

 

 

I really like this poster (ABOVE) because it highlights the immediate associations people have with femininity, and also challenges why you would think that way. By using stereotypical techniques common in advertising aimed at women, it represents every feminine advert ever, and yet it also doesn’t. It’s simple, yet fairly straightforward to understand, which is important if I want it to be seen and recognised by large amounts of people.

I created the above poster as a bit more of an extreme take on the sexist advertising in alcohol marketing. I’m hesitant to use this one, not simply because it’s very edgy, but because I don’t feel I have a tight enough grasp on what sexism is to start to attack it so aggressively. I like the idea of the advert, and how challenging it is, but it would be tricky to justify exactly what it means and exactly how I came to an educated decision to create it. It’s simply a bit of a visual joke that requires more in depth understanding, that I currently lack.

The above poster is a toned down version of the previous one. It still highlights the same issues, but is more passive and contemplative and questioning as opposed to aggressive attack. I don’t know if I like it over the “hey gorgeous” poster, but I feel it addresses another key issue with sexism in our modern day society. Also, having a ‘sexy model’ to advertise against sexism could quite easily be seen as hypocrisy, and would be difficult to argue against with my limited knowledge.

Week 12 // Final Post

The final work

 

Sexism is one of the most widely accepted forms of discrimination, and it has become such an ingrained part of our society that it is incredibly difficult to completely abolish it. It does not dwell simply within the few misguided people, it affects all of us in the media we consume, the interactions we have with each other and the messages fed to us throughout our daily lives. Far too often people get uncomfortable and aggressive when confronted with sexism and movements against it, like feminism, because they don’t understand it or have pre-conceived ideas about the whole issue. There are many excellent movements to combat sexism, but it is slow battle, and specifically in New Zealand “… despite the groundswell of support and the numerous initiatives aimed at equality, statistics show we’re failing women, and in particular our most vulnerable women. We need to stop treating many of our women, consciously or unconsciously, like second-class citizens.” (Enabling Women’s Potential, 1). The key phrase here is “consciously or unconsciously”, implying that sexism is not always directly noticeable, which is incredibly true. Sexism is so common in our society, that it invades our thoughts and controls our pre-conceived ideas on the sexes.

Therefore, to fight the way we think, I created this poster for the fake campaign “#ChangeHowWeThink”, which focuses on questioning why we think these ways by manipulating stereotypical understandings of what a ‘feminine advert’ would look like. More often than not, if we as a society see a poster with: a) flowers b) pink colour and c) fancy cursive fonts, we will immediately assume that the advert is aimed at a feminine audience, because those things are deemed to be feminine. By using this common, but misguided idea, I played with how we interpret everyday media. Upon first glance, we see an advert for women, addressing the viewer as “gorgeous” and “perfect”, such descriptions often used to boost a woman viewer’s self esteem, because the common ideal is that women have a fragile self esteem that needs boosting. However, when studied closely, the tagline “why did you assume this advertisement was for women?” immediately makes the viewer do a second take. It brings to light the assumption made simply by looking at some images and colours on a poster, and makes you question why you would make such an assumption. The final hashtag further emphasises this concept, that we need to address how we think, and change it.

Mirzoeff says “Today we can actively use visual culture to create new self-images, new ways to be seen, and new ways to see the world.” (Mirzoeff, 297), which I feel coincides quite well with my concept. My poster creates a new way to see yourself and the world, because it challenges what you assume is concreted into your way of thinking. In the 21st Century, it has become easier, and therefore imperative, that visual activism is utilised when confronting world issues, as such visual efforts can challenge the way we see the world around us.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

National Council of Women of New Zealand. “Enabling women’s potential the social,economic and ethical imperative.” ncwnz.org.nz. Web. 5 June 2016.

Nicholas, Mirzoeff. “How to see Yourself.” How to See the World. London: Pelican, 2015. 31-69. Print.

Week 11 // Development and Art Ideas

After much more research and digging through various other examples of sexism and discrimination in New Zealand sport, it has dawned on me that it is incredibly difficult to actually decipher where the problem in New Zealand sport lies. Sexism is a huge issue that affects the entire world, and to narrow it down into one single problem affecting sports athletes is only addressing a tiny section of the larger problem. I feel like I should be looking at it in a different way. Sport doesn’t have a sexism problem, society itself has a sexist problem, and because of that it bleeds into everything we see and do, including sport. It has been ingrained into our way of thinking so much that it is difficult to see where and how it affects us.
Because of this, I feel the best way to combat it is to challenge people to see the world from a different perspective. This is not an issue that can be solved simply by making people sign a petition or join a group. If we are to rid ourselves completely of sexism, we have to address the way we think, therefore the best way to do this is to create an easily understandable yet challenging visual work that brings to light certain points that might have otherwise gone unnoticed and accepted as normal.
Because I am aiming for this challenging approach, I need my visual work to be extremely noticeable and seen by as many people as possible. To do this, I could use a billboard, a bus stop  poster, or perhaps even a bus advertisement, to display my work. I want to display my work as something that on first glance seems to target to a certain sex, but upon further inspection highlights the question “why did you assume this advert was aimed at a certain sex?”.
With this idea, the aim is to make people stop and question the way they interpret the world around them, to question why they put the different sexes in their own pre-determined boxes.

Some ideas i have is to create a feminine looking poster, with a large heading like “Hey beautiful” in a cursive font, then small text below asking why you assumed this was an advert aimed at women. I might even create a fake hashtag that helps encapsulate the entire idea, like “change how you think”, or “why do we assume?”. I feel like that tag line will really summarise what the advert is aiming to do, which is to challenge our pre-conceptions.

Week 10 // Focus the Discussion

Question: How can I discuss sexism in a more immediate and/or local sense?

It seems that I could quite easily focus on sexism in sport in New Zealand, which I discovered after reading  this article (radionz.co.nz/women’sworthandsexisminsport). This article discusses the struggle that New Zealand women’s sports teams have with trying to get the same kind of support and coverage that NZ men’s teams do. However, it does also reveal that New Zealand Rugby has put in a lot of effort to growing Women’s Rugby this past year, aiming to get 21,000 women’s players by 2020. 19,500 women play now. This is definitely something I could explore, as it is local and also easily relatable to the NZ public, as sport is a fairly dominant interest in most of the population.

It may also pay to look into sexism in the NZ workplace. I read an interesting article
(http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article) about inappropriate job interviews, in which women have been asked if they are married, what their partner and/or father’s jobs were, and if they were planning on having a baby any time soon. This article framed such questions as sexist and discriminatory, and that it is outrageous that a company could ask such questions. However, this was a very opinionated piece, and after looking through many of the comments, it became apparent that not everyone agreed with the writer’s thoughts. Many people (male and female) made a point that asking about plans for having children is not necessarily sexist, it’s more of an insurance that the employee will be committed to working, and not taking leave after employment. One raised the comparison to when you take out medical insurance, in which the insurance company will always require you to disclose if you have any pre-existing conditions. All interesting points, but what was clear to see was that this is a very grey area, and I could potentially delve into it more.

I am beginning to get some much stronger understandings of how sexism works, and also how things such as feminism work against it. This is a huge subject, and there is almost never a wrong or right understanding of some ideas/events. The majority of issues have grey area, and it can be difficult to decipher what the best solution is.

Something I really wanted to find out was why feminism was called feminism, and not simply referred to as humanism or equalism. This video (huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/10/feminism-not-humanism-youtube) explained that it is called feminism because it is females that are the subjects of the inequality. Much like the Gay Rights Movement is about bringing the rights of homosexual people up to equal everyone else’s, feminism is about bringing female rights on par with male rights. The vlogger says “You attain gender equality by advocating for the rights of the underprivileged gender.”, which I found much more reasonable than questioning why you can’t just believe in the equal rights of all humans. Humanism/equalism, in my current opinion, is a way to ‘cover all bases’ of equality movements, meaning you could call yourself a feminist, gay rights supporter, fighter against racism, and overall describe yourself as an equalist.

Week 7 // Task 4

My essay will focus on the shift of identity in art, going from the artist being a hero until gradually becoming the people are now the heroes. Within this, I will explore how different artists, such as Marcel Duchamp, Diane Arbus, and Brandon Stanton, show identity and self through their work. I will also highlight the differences between their work, and how identity has shifted through it. I will use this information, that of Mirzoeff’s How to See the World, and Brandon Stanton’s On How I Approach Strangers in the Street presentation to help explain my discussion. Through these artists and authors, I will discuss how the artist’s idea of identity in their work has shifted through time to arrive here and now in the present day.

Reflection

This paragraph could quite possibly influence my introduction and perhaps my conclusion, but I am yet to be sure of such a thing.

Week 7 // Task 3

The understanding of ‘self’ has shifted from the artist as a hero, to the subject is the hero.

This statement is important, because it captures the entire concept of the representation of identity shifting from focusing on oneself, to looking at other people’s selves.

I will compare the two following images as both represent very similar messages but very different representations of identity.

RROSE SELAVY (Alias Marcel Duchamp). 1021. Photograph by Man Ray.

A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C , 1966

The first image is Marcel Duchamp’s Rrose Selavy, an alias he created for himself that he used to build on the idea that anybody can be who they want, and that your gender, identity even, is quite simply a performance and there’s nothing to stop you from being who you want to be.
However, in Diane Arbus’ image of this man in curlers, she is not using herself as the subject. She is taking another person who actually is expressing himself as who he wants to be. Similar message, but instead of using herself, Arbus uses someone who is experiencing the real thing, as to reveal the inner uniqeness of his being.
The main difference between these two images, is that Arbus is focusing her understanding of identity on real people, instead of creating a message by making herself the subject. There is a more tangible ‘realness’ to her work as opposed to Duchamp’s.

I feel that this subject is also something Mirzoeff directly references, saying “The modern period, defined by its heroic artists, radical political divides and the dramatic expansion of the industrial economy, seemed to be over.” (48). He understands that the understanding of self and identity was shifting slowly from focusing on the artist, to focusing on the people around the artists.

Another source I might reference is the A Photographic Truth video, which talks about how photography in itself is “…inherently, not truthful.”, which could imply that any portrait photograph is not telling the truth, and thus any identity that is shown to us is distorted by what different people see. This is because everyone interprets images in a different way, therefore it is near impossible to determine what messages will be sent through each photograph.

Another viewpoint is that in modern times, we the people can both be the artist and the subject, thanks to the concept of the selfie. This is seen in the video Selfies – a Visual Analysis. The speaker talks about ‘self’ now being a fluid concept, adn that each moment captured is not a ‘real’ moment, it’s a staged expression and moment for the sake of sharing the self you want people to see.

Resources

TEDxTalks. “Selfies – a Visual Analysis: Elizabeth Urbanski at TEDxNavesink.” YouTube. YouTube, 2013. Web. 10 May 2016.

Metmuseum. “A Photographic Truth.” YouTube. YouTube, 2012. Web. 08 May 2016.

Nicholas, Mirzoeff. “How to see Yourself.” How to See the World. London: Pelican, 2015. 31-69. Print.

Week 7 // Task 2

When a visual text is created, there are multiple messages being created along with it. The artist has a certain demographic in mind when creating their work, and so they include details that will denote specific information, which in turn will imply messages that will be directly understood by the intended audience. Such things can reinforce views people already hold, for example there could be an advertisement for a gym with an image of a physically fit and attractive woman. The image, although seems fairly normal, also sends the message that it is important for people, especially women, to maintain an ‘attractive body’ by going to the gym. This is a common world view, that you are more attractive when you are thinner and more well built, and thus more likable. This world view is in turn a part of the greater ideology that being physically healthy and fit are positive, and people should strive for it.
All of these understandings and messages are being sent through one single advert for a gym. Add this to the various other images we see every day on the street or the internet, and you can begin to understand how certain ideologies and world views can be reinforced every day simply by being viewed by people, thus ‘normalising’ said ideologies.

Reflection

These ideas may just influence the way I interact with my own, and other peoples’, work as an artist or designer, because it is something I will have to keep in mind when thinking about an image’s purpose. When I create a piece, I will need to consider what messages my work is sending, and in contrast I will now take every image I see with a grain of salt, questioning what its actual messages and purpose are.

Week 6 // Task 1

• Identity in art
• Self expression art
• Historical identity
• Modern portraiture
• Artists and expression

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